4 Underrated Eyeshadow Palettes I Wish Weren't Discontinued. . .

     Happy Saturday, everyone!  I must say, talking about discontinued products never seemed to be a popular topic of discussion for me or other bloggers to really focus on much, and while there were originally plans to curate this into a small video series akin to being something like Products I Love & Wish Were Brought Back, alas, here we are in a blog post. 😃 

Recent Drugstore Acquisitions + Urban Decay Swap!

     I'll start with the swap, then I'll go on to the rest of my purchases. With my friend, a couple weeks ago I swapped out my Urban Decay Vice 2 palette that I had never used, for the gorgeous Urban Decay Full Spectrum Palette. I needed some bright hues in my life, and thought this would fit the bill. I had wanted to purchase the Electric Palette for such a long time, that I just felt like trying the first Urban Decay selection of rainbow hues that my eyes passed over, because well, they can do no wrong, right? Well, I still can't say how sure I feel about the Full Spectrum just yet, as I've only used about a third of the shades in the palette on my eyes thus far. I was, upon first impression, a bit disappointed with the performance of some colors moreso than others. It's still on Sephora's site on sale for $35, if you want to check it out.

Now, getting more experimentation with e.l.f. products. I had really wanted to try their Illuminating Palette after seeing how the formula blended into the skin, not to mention my enthusiasm after seeing the complete absence of glitter or sparkle particles in any of the powders! I had also heard great things about a couple of their newly launched lip products, and decided to try out their Poreless Face Primer as well! I have more from other brands as well! Just take a look at these beauties!

Raspberry Macaron Eye Makeup Tutorial | Using Cut-Crease Technique!

      Hello everyone! Is everyone having a good week? Ahh, what wonders a malfunctioning camera lens holds, when it's supposedly broken, then the next day it's working perfectly fine, as if a lens error message had never come up.... Am I the only one with such a peculiarly functioning camera? Alas, well, I now have a working camera, and couldn't be happier that I was able to take photos of this look I was talking about! I was able to tweak this berry-pink toned cut crease eye makeup that I wore in my last video on my channel, and decided to make a list of the steps I took to achieve it! I have a couple of variations of this look: 

Variation 1

Variation 2

A Day in the Tropics: Sunset Eye Makeup feat. Urban Decay Full Spectrum Palette!

     Happy Friday! Yesterday I received the Urban Decay Full Spectrum Palette in a swap I did with my friend Anna. I wanted to do a look that wasn't restricted to just the eye area, and knew I wanted to do something with yellow. I saw a photo in one of those old makeup creative magazines that, to my knowledge, is no longer in publication, and it's a magazine called FACEON. It had a brightly pigmented coral eyeshadow brought down from the lower lashline blended all the way down to the cheekbone in a soft-focus too-high blush placement, which I love in editorial looks! I simply adjusted and tweaked the construction of the look to suit my eye shape.

I'll attempt as best I can to piece this into a step-by-step pictorial, but a couple of these shadows were just frustrating to work with, so, out of impatience, I just skipped ahead to the final look after only taking photos of the first couple steps.

A Minimal Fall FOTD

     *Contains Affiliate Links

Hello, dolls!  Now that it has finally begun to cool off slightly here in the midwest, I thought, what better time than now to reiterate an updated post of my everyday fall makeup look! I've been wearing a slightly altered version of this look for the past couple of years (using different products, of course), and the best part? This look takes me less than 10 minutes to achieve! 

The overall finished look is a glossy berry lip, with a light wash of taupe shimmer on the eyes, winged liner and barely-there face makeup.

Read on if you would like to see which products helped me achieve this simple fall look!

Tutorial: Nighttime Smokey Eyes Using UD Naked 2 Palette

     Hello there!  It has been almost a month since I last uploaded a makeup look of any sort (boo-hiss, hehe just kidding 😉), and I wanted to upload a post showing the eye makeup I wore today, and figured, why not make it a pictorial? So, I have to say that the eyes are quite dramatic for me, and I had to tone it down for daytime with a soft mauve lip and light pink cheeks, because I had Saturday morning errands to run, and.... well, my eyeballs still looked as though they were about to pop out of my skull in natural light, with this 'sandwich' method of eyeshadow placement. I unfortunately could not capture the true contrast of the shadows very accurately in these photos, as it has a much higher contrast in real life. All eyeshadows used for this look are from the Urban Decay Naked 2 Palette.

Glowy Everyday 'Naked' Makeup | Coral & Pink

I've been going through a huge coral phase as of late. As well as crazy color pairings to go along with it (coral and lavender? coral and chartreuse green? Eh??). However, I think that my skintone much prefers coral as an accent in itself to an otherwise clean, understated all-purpose neutral look, which is what I was going for here when I decided to utilize the always-beautiful Urban Decay Naked Palette. It has been a few weeks since I took these pics, and for some reason I completely forgot to write down what I used for base makeup.....eeek. So I don't remember what I used. Sowwy. **Proceeds to droop head in blogger's shame.**
     But as for the color products, I definitely have that covered. :) Including the base makeup, this look was super simple, and could seriously take only 10 minutes to put together! Here we go! Continue reading for the products I used!

My Holiday Beauty Wishlist

Whoa, so many of these products have been on my list for at least 6 months. Holy moly! 

Fiesta Eyes: Teal & Purple

      Hello beauts!  Alright, so I'm singing the end-of-summer blues, and just simply couldn't bear the season transition so quickly, so here I am with a summery pastel daytime-wearable eye: a minted teal on the lid blended just below the crease, and a slightly punchy pinky-purple concoction of color in the upper crease blended just below the browbone. This is a much more toned-down, less electric, inspired take on the beautiful ChrissyAi's Fairy Floss Makeup. Check her out if you haven't! I just recently discovered her myself. 

Might I also add that about 90% of the shadows used for this look are from Coastal Scents. So if you want to replicate this, you can dust off your old Coastal Scents palettes off too, if you have 'em! 

Celebrity Inspired Everyday Makeup: Kendall Jenner

     Hello everyone!  I was perusing my Pinterest makeup inspiration boards today, and saw this beautiful picture of Kendall Jenner's makeup. Her bronzed skin is flawless, eyes kept neutral, lightly defined and brightened, flushed cheeks, a soft highlight, and her whole look is topped off with a blotted matte coral-y red lip. So, I'm coming at ya today with this celebrity inspired look (recreating the look in a way that I myself would wear it, and adapt it to my skintone and features, as a she-glows-in-the-dark-she's-so-pale Irish girl). Here we go!

Image of Kendall from Google Images

| Eyes of the Day | featuring Sephora + PANTONE UNIVERSE Elemental Energy Eyeshadow Palette

     Hey everyone!  Wow, I can't believe spring is finally  here! I'm definitely going to the park today to enjoy this beautiful weather, but I wanted to get this posted while I could. I have been playing around with this bad boy eyeshadow palette from Sephora + PANTONE. My review of this palette will hopefully be up by tomorrow!

Sephora + PANTONE UNIVERSE Elemental Energy Eyeshadow Palette

       Here is the back of the palette (both pictures match the quadrants' positions; top (L) green-toned quad is 'Earth,' top (R) barely-there quad is 'Air,' bottom (L) burnished copper and pink quad is 'Fire,' and bottom (R) aquatic blue quad is 'Water'

Until the review, here is a soft, subdued neutral look I created with this palette! (Please excuse my unruly brows; the closer up they are, the more apparently bad they look; I could pluck them and shape them to the end of their days but they would still grow back full and mad-looking a day later. Haha oh, genetics) 

I didn't restrict this eyeshadow look to one particular quad, or element, rather, but I did use 2 shades from the Earth quad (Gingersnap and Pebble), 1 shade from the Air quad (Murmur), and 1 shade from the Fire quad (Dawn). More details about shadow placement are in the product breakdown below. 

| PURPLE DIAMOND |

     Hi everyone!  I decided to recreate this look today after being inspired from a few purple smokey eye techniques I've come across in the past. I adjusted the techniques and shapes to my own eye shape, as I have quite hooded eyelids, and also incorporated a touch of glitter to give it more of an edge. I thought that it would be the perfect compliment to this frigid, chilly weather in the northern U.S. where I live. I can honestly say that I've never wanted so badly to sit out in 90 degree weather and just roast in the sun (ok, maybe a bit of an exaggeration) in a bathing suit by the pool. Ah, summertime...

     Nonetheless, with this look, in my head I was going for more of a monochromatic result than what it actually turned out to be. I was going for a more defined lip that was more of an apparent purple, but I still like the way it turned out. This post is just going to be a product breakdown for the eyes and lips, and I'll lightly touch on the actual color products (not necessarily the base and skintone products) that were used for the skin. Alright, let's go!

| FOTD: Signature Red Lip |

     Hello everyone! Hope you all are having a fantastic day! I figured that I would start everything off on here with a Face of the Day (more commonly known as FOTD's, so not necessarily a tutorial; however if anyone would like to see one, I plan on starting the other venue of uploading videos very soon! But for now, a tutorial for this would more than likely be uploaded as a pictorial, if requested). 😊

       So, the red lip has been probably the most loved and most feared aspect of makeup throughout the evolution of the art to this day. It seems to be the one color that just loves to feather and bleed the most, not to mention attach itself to our pearly whites just when we're about to take a picture, am I right? Now, I think I have found my perfect combination of products for a red lip!